My Hurricane Irma Experience

At the time of this writing, Hurricane Irma was among the strongest hurricanes to ever exist. Only one Atlantic hurricane on record, hurricane Allen in 1980, contained stronger sustained winds at 190 mph. Hurricane Irma topped off at an equally destructive 185 mph.

After numerous weather forecasts and tracking models, it was decided that a mass evacuation of Florida was needed. Numerous counties and cities were declared mandatory evacuation zones and after having seen what Hurricane Harvey could do just weeks before, most people followed instructions.

The greater Melbourne area, and Florida Tech, did not fall in a mandatory evacuation zone. Students were not required to leave but were highly encouraged to do so. It didn’t matter where students went as long as it was out of Florida. Regardless of which hurricane model was used, the sheer size of hurricane Irma meant that the entirety of Florida would be hit. Every conceivable media outlet in the entire state of Florida, except for our campus Crimson, chose to cover a topic relevant to the hurricane to ensure people were at least informed, if not prepared.

Whether due to inadequate transportation, sheer stubbornness, or an inability to comprehend what a literal act of god is capable of, a small group of students (myself among them) chose to remain on campus during the storm.

Classes were canceled Friday, September eighth, but most students had already left by Thursday. I knew I would remain by midweek so after grabbing supplies, watching 95% of the campus leave, and filling out Florida Tech’s “Why the hell are you staying here?” survey, I did the only other thing I could: I observed.

Friday the eighth didn’t feel like a special day. The parking lots in front of the dorms looked like a normal weekend. There were fewer cars, but it wasn’t a ghost town. There was still some activity, but many areas were already prepared for water and high winds. Garbage bags were placed over televisions and computers, sandbags and mulch were moved in front of doors to prevent water from entering. Garbage cans had their lids removed so the winds wouldn’t turn them into missiles. Plywood and sheet metal were fastened over buildings considered at risk or too important to risk. I made it a point to document the water levels in the botanical gardens for future reference. They were my test bed for flooding. The students who were waiting until the last moment to leave were packing their cars. Some were packing the items they’d normally take with them on a trip. Others were taking items they didn’t want to lose like their computers. A few were packing everything they had including their supplies for the hurricane. I saw several students load 24 packs of Zephyr Hills water into their cars.

By Saturday, the air around the university was noticeable different. This was the last day the university was scheduled to have anything happening. There was a skeleton crew of a skeleton crew for staff. The panther dining hall was still serving some food for the 50 or so students who remained but the selection was understandably lessened. Meager snack bags were given to each student in case they didn’t have any food at the dorm. A strong storm had arrived in the early morning, but it wasn’t the hurricane. It was a storm pushed out of the way by the winds of the hurricane. This brief storm had already caused a concerning amount of flooding. The botanical gardens had flooded so much I couldn’t reach the areas where I had originally taken my pictures.

My dorm room was located on the fifth floor of Harris. If it flooded there, the state of Florida had far bigger problems. Still, I was worried how the rest of the university would fare. Through all the emails, texts, and alerts from the university I never saw a listing of what Florida Tech staff would remain. I knew security would stay to ensure student safety and discourage possible looting, but I wasn’t sure who else was left.

In short, Security was it. My RAs had even left. There wasn’t an email or forewarning from any of the RAs assigned to Harris. They simply ran. Even my professors wrote emails stating that they obviously wouldn’t be here. I didn’t think the RAs would be much use in an emergency but it’s still nice to know you’re not the sole resident of a five-story structure.

Several enterprising students from across campus took advantage of this opportunity to play at the sodden Harris soccer field. All the gates were locked but there was an adequately sized hole in the parking lot fence. They played soccer and raced each other by surfing on the ground using kickboards. It was a nice to watch people make the best of the situation and because of their beach attire, they inflicted far less damage on the field than actual soccer players. No harm, no foul.

Sunday morning, the storm started proper. I was jolted awake by several alerts from my phone just before 9:00 a.m. Due to the size of hurricane Irma and her effects on air pressure, tornadoes were seen in the area. Over a dozen tornado sightings occurred in the area on Sunday. I never saw any outside my window but the dorms in Harris allow for far less than 360 degrees of vision. My roommate had left for Atlanta with friends on Friday, so I passed the day playing music at an irresponsible volume, watching Florida Tech’s sole remaining duck swim in a circle, and generally doing whatever I wanted. The rest of the day was uneventful and damp. The sky was a blanket of uniform grey as far as I could see from my room on the fifth floor. And it rained constantly. Except for the howling wind, innumerable fallen palm fronds, and continual tornado warnings it could almost have passed for a summer day in Washington state. Until about 6:15 p.m.

As hurricane Irma eased her way toward Florida Tech, things became increasingly loud. Wind was confused for thunder. Brown-out power outages caused fire alarms to go off randomly. The pouring rain made it difficult to even see the streetlights in the adjacent parking lot.

The campus internet, PanthAir, went down intermittently and because the dorms use a switchboard, direct landlines were often out too. This meant if the cell towers went down, I couldn’t contact anyone and vice versa. It’s one thing to sit and wait for a hurricane, it’s another to do so while indecipherable sirens echo down the hall and you know you are completely alone. From 7:30-9:00 p.m. was not a pleasant experience. After the first hour and a half, the novelty wore off and it became just another nuisance. During a lull in the storm, security came and reset the fire alarm. Afterwards, the wind and rain became uniform enough to get some sleep.

Around 1:00 a.m. Monday morning, the power went completely out causing the fire alarm to start up again and turning all the lights on and off sporadically as the system fought to try and return power. Air conditioning, all visible campus lighting except for the entrance light to the Senior Design Center for some reason, vending machines, and all wall outlets were without power. Surprisingly, my refrigerator was the one thing inside that still worked. Harris Village has a set of generators by the volleyball court that are wired to select lines such as the refrigerator in my dorm. Hurricane Irma was at the midpoint in her journey through Melbourne at that point. Not being in the mood to deal with what was happening, I grabbed some earplugs wrapped my head in a shirt and tried to sleep through the sirens and howling wind.

I woke up just before 11:00 a.m. to a bright sunny day; Florida was back to normal. I took stock of my room and everything looked fine. The temperature inside was in the high 80s but everything was intact. I even had consistent, but reduced, water pressure. Unfortunately, I didn’t have hot water. After a very brisk shower and a regular breakfast courtesy of my still working fridge, I went out to see the damage.

While I was taking photos by the Olin Physical Science building, I saw people going in and out of the dining hall. Campus services weren’t scheduled to open for a few more days so I went to see what was going on. It turns out not all the RAs had decided to bail. Campus Dining Director Tom Stuart and members of ResLife had decided they could use materials from the Panther Market and offer sandwiches and fruit to the students so they had something to eat.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t done in a completely altruistic manner. If someone couldn’t definitively prove they were not only a student, but a student who remained on campus during the storm, the RAs would refuse to serve you and insist you leave the building or they would call Security. I arrived at 12:30 and they stopped serving at 1:00 p.m. Students who lived off campus as well as a few families who lived nearby and didn’t know where else to go for a simple meal were consistently turned away. Even though there was plenty to go around. There was no compassion on the menu.

Another issue with this meal was that it didn’t seem like everyone was actually informed about it. I asked the RA at the front desk who was turning people away how students were told about the meal since I hadn’t heard about it. He said the RAs had knocked on all resident’s doors and informed them. I told him I hadn’t received a knock and I lived on the fifth floor of Harris. He said he had personally knocked on every single door in Harris beginning at 11:00 a.m. so if I hadn’t heard anything it was my own fault. It’s comforting to think that the best of people comes out during emergencies, but this was clearly not the case at Florida Tech that day.

About 80% of the damage to Florida Tech was done to the vegetation. Hurricane Irma had gone through Melbourne as a category two hurricane, but still contained over 100 mph winds and heavy rainfall. (When I first began drafting this, we didn’t have a botanical garden so much as a low-lying swamp, but the fish were enjoying their newfound freedom.) Numerous trees were broken or uprooted, and palm fronds torn by the wind were scattered across campus. My favorite example of damage to the campus involved the access doors to the generators by Harris Village. The doors open outward, but the interior area is open to the elements since there is no roof. The strength of the wind was so great it forced the doors open by tearing the lock and its anchor point off the door.

Over the next few days power was gradually restored, and people started to return to the university. The Facilities Department began clean-up early Tuesday morning and except for the high water levels, they managed to address most of the damage by Wednesday night. Restoring power to all of campus was a slower endeavor. The northern end of campus containing the freshmen dorms, library, president’s office, SUB cafe, and security department regained power shortly after the storm. The southern end of campus, which contains the Harris dorms, Harris commons, cafeteria, and Scott Center was still not fully restored by Wednesday. The windows in the Harris dorms open roughly four inches but there was no breeze to speak of after the storm. My room at Harris became a damp, 85-degree concrete box after the second day. At least my fridge continued to have power and I still had my numbingly cold running water.

Despite the damage across campus and the immediate area, there was no loss of life, flooding didn’t affect most structures, and clean-up took a few weeks as opposed to months. University staff returned to campus Wednesday, September 13, at noon to prepare for classes and prioritize repairs. Regular operations began Thursday, but instructors were told to be lenient with attendance since students may have traveled far to avoid the storm. Unfortunately for students, in order to meet accreditation standards, the four days of classes missed due to hurricane Irma were made up on the weekends. The semester and university at large continued as usual, with only a hiccup from the second most powerful Atlantic hurricane on record.